Extortion
by A Karswyll
Summary: Extortion is a dangerous business under any circumstances. But never more so when one's target is presidential adviser Major General J. O'Neill. (Marking Jack's Birthday on 20 October.)
1. Chapter 1

**Title**: Extortion**  
Author**: A. Karswyll**  
Summary**: Extortion is a dangerous business under any circumstances. But never more so when one's target is presidential adviser Major General J. O'Neill. [Celebrating Jack's Birthday on 20 October.]**  
Rating**: M **Season**: Season 9 **Complete**: Yes **Date**: 16-October-2010 **Word Count**: 7,679**  
Posting schedule**: chapter one on 20 October, chapter two on 21 October, chapter three on 22 October, chapter four on 23 October, and chapter five on 24 October.

* * *

**Chapter 1**

The six young men in their early twenties, each a privilege scion of the world's wealthiest multibillionaires, lounged about in the seclusion of their private room in the equally private club that catered to young men of their stature.

While all were sharing a bottle of fifty-year-old whisky, two indulged themselves in a friendly game of pool, two were observing the pool game, and the remaining two read through a military dossier the other four had already read.

Harvey Gold III looked up from chalking his pool cue when Marcus Wilson made a sound in the back of his throat and leaned back in his chair, having finished with the last page of the folder. James McAllister continued reading the papers in his hand.

"Well, what do you think?" Harvey inquired.

Marcus picked up his glass of whisky, swished it around, and thought about the military file he had just read. A file about an officer who was apparently prime desk material judging from the amount of times he had been brought back into the fold after his deactivations as a result of Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome which clearly demonstrated he was unable to cope with combat stress the few times he had been in the field. Usually he was shuffled around various bases as liaison or instructor but had spent the last decade or so sitting comfortable underneath a thousand feet of rock working with NORAD.

"What about him?" Marcus asked lazily.

"That's what I asked too," Donald Mackay VI, Harvey's pool opponent, chimed in. Colton Robertson and Lucas Sharpe nodded their agreement with Donald's statement.

"Come on guys, can't you see the potential?" Harvey cajoled.

"What potential?" James inquired as he finished his reading. "The guy is an asset behind the desk but can't cut it in the field."

"Exactly," Harvey exclaimed as he pointed his cue at James. He sighed at the five blank faces that looked back at him. "You guys have no imagination. Just think, what is his current position?"

James checked the file again and read off, "Presidential advisor."

"For what?" Colton inquired.

"Who cares?" Harvey waved Colton's question away. "The point is he's a newly arrived general here that doesn't know the ropes and might be open to a little… persuasion, because clearly he can't handle stress."

Marcus shifted his weight forward as he began to look interested, and he was not the only one.

"What sort of persuasion are you thinking of applying?" Donald asked with a smirk while he leaned against the pool table.

"Well, after finding the file Dad left out, I did a little more digging. It seems that the guy, after getting himself a star, got himself hitched to a former subordinate who is much, much younger than himself."

The five young men made sounds of interest but it was Lucas who asked a question first: "Is she hot?"

"She is smoking," Harvey answered as he thought of the pictures of the stunning blue-eyed blonde bombshell his investigator had returned to him. "And it seems that she just got herself a new and equally young CO back in their old home state of Colorado while her loving husband is here in Washington."

Six smirks curled the lips of the men as they thought about the possibilities the situation presented to opportunistic individuals such as themselves.

"You think that is the right pressure to apply?" James asked.

Harvey nodded his head. "So we apply a little pressure in the form of some naughty photos that would otherwise go to the press that even if she's just his latest squeeze, would attract too much attention that would lose him his cushy job advising the prez, so the guy has to cave and do a few favours for us."

"Well then," Marcus raised his whisky glass, "let's get on it. To Major General J. O'Neill and all that he's going to deliver to us."

"To Major General J. O'Neill," the five other men chorused as they raised their glasses in agreement, certain of their imminent success.

. . .

Harvey and Donald looked distastefully at their unitary surroundings but endured it because of the richness this endeavour would reap for them. It had taken calling in a surprising number of favours to arrange a meeting with Hayes's newest military advisor but when O'Neill was theirs, those favours would hardly be missed.

As the two young men were ushered by General O'Neill's aid into an equally unitary office, the grey haired man with a face softened by weight seated behind the desk looked up at them over the rims of his reading glasses. "Misters Mackay and Gold?"

"Harvey Gold," Harvey said as he put himself slightly forward before gesturing to Donald, "Donald Mackay."

The old man put the pages he had been reading down and watched as the two young men in their early twenties assuredly took seats in the chairs in front of his desk without being invited to. "I have been led to believe you have some… interesting information you would like to share with me?"

Harvey and Donald smiled at the old general, both fighting to keep the smiles from becoming smirks—for now.

"We do have some information we would like to share with you," Donald said urbanely, "and believe upon seeing it you will be most helpfully."

The old man's scarred left eyebrow cocked quizzically at them, looking a touch wary at their poorly concealed predatory natures as Harvey set the briefcase he was carrying onto his lap and opened it.

With deliberate movements he unlocked the briefcase, withdrew a five by seven manila coloured envelope, secured the briefcase again, and then placed the envelope on the desk between themselves and the general.

Harvey withdrew his hand and waited until, with clear reluctance, the general reached forward and picked up the envelope.

"How do you believe I would be helpful?" O'Neill asked as his fingers slid open the envelope's flap and slipped in to grasp the small collection of five by seven photographs within. Photographs that were face down so that all he saw as he drew them out was the white backs.

Harvey and Donald waited until O'Neill turned the photographs over and the general's breath caught in a strangled gasp before speaking.

Harvey no longer attempted to conceal his smirk as he regally surveyed his caught prey. He took great pleasure in the old man's white complexion and the tremor in O'Neill's hands as he shuffled through the graphic sexual photographs he held.

"We would be very regretful if anything was to impugn upon your—or the president's—reputation. The president I am very sure would be very regretful as well," Harvey's voice oozed false sincerity.

O'Neill didn't look up as his heart screamed denial at the photographs his eyes were seeing and the timestamp in the right corners. Intense images of his second wife engaged in graphic sex with another man. A man who was known to him and significantly younger than himself.

"It would be most unfortunate for your wife as well if those were to get out, wouldn't they sir?" Donald said O'Neill's title insolently.

"Wh-what do you want?" O'Neill asked, his posture defeated and voice shaken, as he finally looked up at Harvey and Donald.

Harvey smiled contemptuously. "Want General O'Neill? Of course we want nothing more than to ensure the good name of yourself and the president. Just think of the scandal if the negatives were to fall into far more unscrupulous hands than ours."

"You have the negatives?" O'Neill pleaded.

"I am certain something can be arranged for them," Harvey said as he stood. "But this has been such a shock to you, why don't you take the weekend to think it over?"


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

Major General Jack O'Neill walked stiffly into his Alexandrian townhouse that Friday afternoon. His body on automatic as it went through the rituals of locking the door behind him, kicking off his shoes, hanging his visor on the coat rack, and tugged at his tie as he made his way to his living room.

Working on the tie he tossed his briefcase onto the coffee table in front of his couch and headed for the living room's liquor cabinet. Fumbling with the cabinet doors his trembling fingers closed around the neck of a fifteen-year-old whisky bottle and a glass.

Turning back around he walked stiffly back to the couch, set the bottle and glass down, and sat himself down on the couch cushions. Jack first shrugged off his jacket and tossed it over the back of the couch, the weight of the medals, awards, and ribbons so much that the jacket slipped off the back onto the floor with a muffled thump.

Jack took no notice as he uncorked the full whisky bottle and poured himself a generous serving. With a swiftness at odds with his, until then displayed stiff and automata actions, he tossed the whisky back and barely felt the burn as it traveled down his throat.

The neck of the bottle and rim of the glass chimed against each other as he poured himself another serving and then against the glass top of the coffee table as he set the bottle and glass down.

Forcing the trembling from his shaking fingers he reached for his briefcase and unlatched it. His emotions in turmoil and wishing desperately that he could control them as fiercely as he now controlled his body. _How could she have…?_

He opened the case and drew out the five by seven envelope that sat on top of the pile of work papers. He had always known that she was out of his league but this was a brutal twisting knife to his heart that almost made breathing difficult. He had been a fool to believe that it was really him that she… a thing for the lunatic fringe, obviously it was a thing for her COs!

With the envelope in his hand, he re-latched the briefcase and after setting it onto the floor, pushed it underneath the coffee table with his foot.

Still exerting precise control over his fingers he opened the envelope and drew out the collection of twenty photographs. He let the envelope flutter away in ignorance as he fanned the photographs across the glass top of the coffee table. That done, Jack methodically matched and sorted the images by the timestamps in their lower right corner into groups of three.

Dates that were all from this month.

That done he couldn't control the trembling of his fingers any longer as he hurriedly reached for the glass. Only the fact that he had only filled the glass to the halfway mark kept the whiskey from splashing over the rim of the glass as his shaking hands brought it to his mouth to drink.

The whisky burned down his throat once again and Jack squeezed his eyes shut tight against the sensation. But the tears that leaked at the edges were not from the whiskey burn but the rendering of his heart because of the pornographic photographs.

Photographs that graphically showed Samantha O'Neill having sex with Cameron Mitchell.

. . .

Jack awoke Saturday morning feeling like utter crap and his mouth tasted like something dead had taken up residence in it overnight. His misery wasn't help by the awkward stiffness which came from spending the night asleep on the couch and he had decided two decades ago that he was way too old to be sleeping on sofas.

His mind fuzzy about last night that had led to such a degrading condition and drinking binge, with a grunt of effort he attempted to climb to his feet and instead nearly rolled off the couch. A flailing arm that touched the coffee table halted his momentum and the touch of glossy photographs underneath his fingers and, even before his beery eyes could focus on the table, the events of yesterday returned in a torrent rush.

And as memory returned he wished he could have remained in a drunken stupor. How could she have betrayed him? How could he have been so blind to believe she really loved him?

Combined with the binge drinking of last night, the painful twisting of his heart had him flailing into a sitting position as he fought the urge to vomit until he was steady enough to get to his feet and make the sanctuary of the bathroom.

Jack hunched forward over the coffee table and the whisky glass set onto a photograph, to give himself a few more moments to fight his gag reflex. As he did so his slowly focusing beery eyes caught a detail of the distorted magnification of a part of the photograph the whisky glass was sitting on.

As his interest in what the bottom of the glass had isolated sharpened, his urge to vomit faded. Straightening from his hunched over position he picked up both glass and photograph and took another long look. After a minute he put both glass and photograph down and a little unsteadily, got to his feet.

Jack stood still for a few minutes to let the room stop spinning. Once he was certain his head wasn't threatening to fall off any more, he carefully made his way from the living room to his home office and began fumbling through the drawers. Finally finding what he was looking for, oddly shoved between two books of his small office library, he grasped the object firmly and carefully made his way back to the living room.

Sinking into the couch cushions Jack set the glass and empty whisky bottle onto the far corner of the coffee table and picked up the first photograph. This time as he examined the images he ignored the pornographic positions of Sam and Mitchell and just focused on his wife's body.

Slowly and meticulously he examined the photographs underneath the magnifying glass he had fetched. It didn't take him looking at more than three photographs again for him to confirm what the glass had shown him, but it was not until the last image was scrutinized with the magnifying glass that he allowed himself to wilt back into the couch in boneless relief.

His mind dizzy with heart mending relief and gut churning guilt. He **knew** her. Knew that she would rewrite the laws of physics and challenge the chain-of-command for him. Knew that even if she had not already done those things for him, that she was a woman who once she gave her word to 'love, honour, and cherish' would do so until death and beyond.

God… how could he even have believed for even a moment?

It wasn't his Sam.

The whisky glass he had first looked into had not only magnified, but isolated Sam's left thigh which was clearly shown as she rode Mitchell. In the picture her left thigh was smooth and blemish free. In truth he knew his wife's left thigh to be marked by a rather large plasma scar from her encounter with a Kull warrior. It was faint relatively speaking, but it was still noticeable and something that would have been shown on the photographs given their clarity.

But that mark and sign of battle was not the only one missing from his wife's body.

The other significant scar missing was the one on her lower abdomen where she had been knifed when the base had gone primitive back in the first year of the program. It had scarred rather noticeably after being infected which meant to this day she refused to wear bikinis to public beaches.

There were other identifying marks that he had delighted in acquainting himself with since their marriage, her coffee coloured freckles and intimately placed mole, but those scars…

The anguished pain in his heart was rapidly morphing into a cold burning fury as he reached underneath the coffee table for his briefcase.

No one attacked his wife.

No one.

Setting his briefcase onto the glass surface in front of himself Jack snapped open the latches and found his cell phone buried between work papers. His mind already racing a mile a minute he rose to his feet, punched numbers into the mobile device and as it rang, began striding to his bedroom to remove the uniform that he still wore.

Barely giving his aid on the other end time to answer, Jack snapped out his orders. "Davis, get me everything about Harvey Gold and Donald Mackay. I want to know everything, from where they went to school to what brand of toilet paper they use."

His aid affirmed the general's orders and after ending the call, Jack tossed his cell phone onto his bed and he stripped off his clothes to toss them into the laundry hamper. He would shower, eat breakfast, and then call his aid back to find out what the preliminary search of Gold and Mackay had dug up.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

Samantha O'Neill née Carter hummed underneath her breath Saturday morning as she mounted the steps to her Alexandrian townhouse. She was relishing with anticipation the coming weekend with Jack that they had long been planning, having coordinated some of their downtime to coincide.

Living in different states and not being able to see each other for months at a time, had her sharply missing her husband. Especially this past year had brought quite a change in their lives; from seeing the man she loved every day—even if it was only professionally—to being married to him and seeing him only once in a while…

Slipping the key into the doorknob, she unlocked the door and entered their house. She raised a blonde eyebrow at the pair of shoes her husband had left square in the entrance way before neatly setting them to the side with her own sandals.

Hanging her jacket and purse up in the closet Sam called out to her husband as she proceeded into their home. She had only called out his name twice when the sound of the shower registered from upstairs, and now that her husband's location was known to her, she stopped calling out.

Further evidence of her husband's occasional sloppiness presented itself when she entered the living room to find an empty whisky bottle and glass on the coffee table with his open briefcase and scattered papers. Sighing at the sight of crumpled blue cloth, Sam walked behind the couch to pick up the discard clothing item. Her sigh turned to a frown as she picked it up and realized it was Jack's Class A jacket. She had never known him to be so careless with any piece of his Class A's for all his carping about having to wear the uniform.

Folding the jacket more formally, her fingers smoothed out creases in the fabric and her attention turned to the coffee table and what she now realized were photographs, mostly stacked together underneath a large magnifying glass.

Frowning at what appeared to be the rather pornographic image of the topmost photograph, Sam rounded the couch and after sitting on the cushions, placed Jack's jacket beside her. Reaching forward she curiously moved the magnifying glass to get a clearer look at who was in the photograph and froze.

It was herself and Cam.

Blood draining from her face and a faint tremble afflicting her hands in disbelief at what she was seeing, Sam picked up the stack of photographs and slowly flipped through the collection.

It wasn't the sudden absence of the sound of the shower running that had her twisting in her seat towards the hallway to the second floor, but the proximity awareness of her husband that most considered paranormal.

Still damp from the shower he had just vacated and clothed only in a white towel, wrapped around a waist thickened by two years at a desk and baring the knees he considered too boney, Jack stood in the hall archway.

Blue eyes sought brown, seeking loving reassurance and instead found devastating confirmation. Sam's pale face turned stark white at what the depths of her husband's eyes told her.

He had believed.

And a part of Sam, a small part that wasn't screaming in denying anguish like the rest of her soul at what she saw in Jack's eyes, was terrified that he still believed.

"How could… I would never…" Sam's anguished response was barely above a whisper. The faint tremble of her hands became full shakes and she was unable to hold onto the photographs in her hands any longer as they dropped in scattered groups around her.

The last glossy image had barely settled when Jack's long legs finished covering the distance between them. He rounded the couch and sat on the cushion beside her, his strong hands reaching out to frame her face as his eyes held hers.

"You don't think I don't know that Sam? I know you. I know your loyalty," Jack exclaimed passionately as his thumbs rubbed at the trailing tears from her blue eyes that threatened to become a stream. "Once you give your word, you will rewrite the laws of physics to keep it."

"Then… then why?" was all Sam could plead brokenly as her hands came up to desperately grasp at his forearms; desperate to find an anchor in the emotional storm.

"God Sam, I am sorry." Jack groaned as he brought their faces closer together. "It's my fault. My failing, not yours. Don't you ever believe it is yours," he said fiercely.

Sam choked back a hiccupping sob as the tears began to flow more freely.

"I mean it Sam," Jack avowed. "Promise me that. Promise me that you won't blame yourself."

Sam could only look at his fierce face, which was increasingly blurring because of the tears she couldn't stop. How could she keep from blaming herself? If Jack really believed in her then he would never have believe in the pictures.

"Sam," Jack said sharply to keep her from closing her eyes when they threatened to close and close out his demand.

"H-how?" Sam finally sobbed, unable to give the promise he was demanding.

"By blaming me," Jack muttered as he hauled his wife into his arms and they rocked together. Sam burrowed against his warm skin, seeking succour in his touch that she had not found in his eyes earlier. "By blaming me and my stupid ass Sam, that's how."

"But, but you haven't done anything," Sam's voice was muffled against his chest and distorted by the tears she still cried.

"Yes Sam I did—I have. I let my demons believe and didn't trust even though I know, beyond any other belief I have in this world, that you will do the impossible to keep faith."

"How could you?" Sam still couldn't grasp how he could believe in the first place and Jack knew he would have to tell her the demons he had kept from her. For her own peace of mind of course, which as this had shown, had backfired spectacularly and hurt her even more than sharing them in the first place would have.

Jack only allowed himself a few more moments of private chastisement before forcing his guilty demons into words. Whispers of insecurity that had strengthened with his move to DC three months ago because of the stress of the demands of his new position, the irrefutable knowledge that he was now really riding a desk, the weight he had put on, and above all that he was no longer a man of action. 'A man of action' was how he had defined himself for decades and as much as he was loath to admit to even himself, all those changes had changed how he viewed himself and not for the better.

"Sam," Jack began, "I know we've talked about this before, but I know that you still don't understand how I see our age difference. All those years we served together, even after the zatarc detector and we almost gave voice to an unspoken agreement between us to be together if we had the chance, I never really believed we would have that chance. I do not know how many times with your other… and then with Pete… Sam, I was certain then that that was how things were meant to be."

Sam's sniffling had eased enough for Jack to be certain that she was listening so he forged onwards.

"You are so young and vibrant Sam and I know I could never keep up with your brilliance. And I knew someday, you would find someone who could give you everything I wanted to. Everything I wanted to, but couldn't. And I've lived with those demons for so long that even though I know you, even though I know you would never betray me, when given what looked like evidence—with someone younger and fitter—my demons ruled again. And you will never know how sorry I am for that."

Still sniffling Sam stiffened her arms and pushed away from Jack. Her blue eyes, swollen red with tears, snapped with fury as she levelled her gaze at her husband.

"You are an ass Jack," Sam said each word with distinctive forcefulness. "Yes I have screwed other men since we've met but you've fucked other women as well. But to get this straight, I've never had any interest in Cam, and certainly none in anyone else since our marriage. You are what I need. And by God, Jack, by the end of this day, you will believe I love you."


	4. Chapter 4

WARNING: Graphic Sex

**Chapter 4**

Already curled up into her husband's lap, Sam shifted to straddle him and rose up onto her knees. Pain at the betrayal of faith already morphed into burning fury that he would dare believe in the first place. Now in the position to loom over Jack she planted her hands on the naked skin of his chest and shoved.

Jack unbalanced and flayed slightly at the sudden awkward shifting of weight as he was forced from a sitting position to prone. The back of his head connected painfully with the arm of the couch on his way down. Jack winced at the flash of pain but his attention was soon focused back on his wife.

Sam grabbed the hem of her blouse and yanked it over her head, as her fury tangled up with the need to dominate and lust. Discarding her shirt, Sam soon made short work of her bra and only paused in that endeavour to slap Jack's hands away.

"Hands to yourself," Sam snapped.

"What? Sam!" Jack exclaimed his own lust growing at the sight of the virago straddling him. The desire—the need—to touch and caress her was something his body and soul craved.

Looking furiously down at her prone husband Sam repeated her order sharply, "Hands to yourself. You're mine."

Reluctantly Jack complied, his hands scraping with frustration on the couch fabric futilely for something to grip.

Leaning forward so that she could shimmy out of her slacks and panties, for a moment their faces were intimately close and Jack could clearly see the furious intent in his wife's blue eyes. This was not just going to be angry sex, but a furious claiming. Succeeding in her undressing endeavour Sam straightened back up and planted her weight solidly on Jack's lower abdomen so that his towel-clad erection could only rub lightly against her rear.

Pinned by her weight and her piercing blue eyes, Sam locked gazes with her husband again as she set her fingertips to his chest and sensually raked her nails down. Her mouth followed, tongue, lips, and teeth alternately tormenting and soothing the brutally loving marks she inflicted.

With each lick, kiss, suckle, scrape of teeth, and light bite the lustful tension in Jack's body wrenched ever higher. Heightened by the fact that he was not allowed to touch and could only grasp vainly at the rough fabric of the couch while his wife continued her sexual onslaught.

Sam's attack was punctuated by mutterings against his skin of: "You're mine."

"Yes, yes," was all Jack could throatily chant in response. He fixed his gazed on the white painted ceiling of the living room in a further attempt to keep his hands from his wife. If he couldn't see her, he wouldn't need to touch her soft skin so badly.

As her fingernails scraped over and down his taut skin, her heated mouth followed soothing the passionate stinging. Sam shifted her own body downward and the friction caught and dragged at the towel wrapped around Jack's waist and exerted a delicious pressure on his sex. When Sam's mouth and hands finally reached his groin, she flicked the towel open.

Jack bucked as one hand pressed down on the erogenous spot of his left hipbone and her lips slid down the crease of his thigh. Nearly overwhelmed by the dual sensation that assaulted him and burned away at his control.

Sam shifted her weight and made sure that she was straddling Jack's lower legs enough that if he bucked again he wouldn't toss them from the couch. Her hand didn't stir from Jack's sweet spot or her mouth from reaching its goal of his balls while she re-balanced herself.

"God, Sam!" Jack shouted, fighting desperately to keep himself from bucking them to the floor as Sam sucked, laved with her tongue, kissed, and fondled his balls with her free hand and steadily whitewashed his mind with pleasure by the constant pressure on his erogenous hipbone.

"Mine," Sam growled as she nipped at the underside of his erect shaft.

Jack's body bowed as the sharp sensation knifed through his nerves and Sam firmly shifted her weight again to push him back to the couch cushions. Jack collapsed back shuddering, his gasps for breath interrupted only by his incoherent attempts to speak as he continued staring blindly at the ceiling overhead.

"God Sam… please… yes, yes… just… Carter!" Jack roared as his vision greyed out when Sam finally sucked the head of his penis into her mouth and wetly teased the weeping opening with her tongue.

Diligently Sam set herself to teasing her husband even more into a sexual frenzy. Jack nearly cried and did verbally shout out a denial when Sam gave one last suckle of his erection after minutes of teasing and lifted her head away.

A shuddering gasp caught in the back of Jack's throat as Sam wrapped a firm hand around his shaft and he felt damp curls against the over-sensitized head of his penis. His eyes snapped from their desperate lock on the ceiling to his wife's intent face.

Blue and brown eyes locking together as Sam used the hand on his sex to guide the head in a long stroke up her folds. She shuddered and moaned when she stroked firmly over her clitoris and Jack could only whimper as she did it again and again. The sensation more than his lust enflamed nerves could stand as his impending released coiled and burned in his balls and gut.

"Please, Sam! Fuck—inside!" Jack wasn't sure if it was his desperate begging or Sam's own arousal that had her stop her teasing of them both.

Sam fitted the head of his erection against her entrance and growled demandingly: "Mine."

"Yes, yes, yours!" Jack pleaded and half screamed, half moaned as Sam took him inside. The heated wetness of her body stroking over his was more than he could endure and she had barely risen up on her knees again for another stroke when the orgasmic bliss clawing at his balls exploded.

. . .

Jack felt it was hours later when his synapses managed to rearrange themselves into a semblance of order. And it wasn't even that his mind was ready to reboot that had him focusing but the sound of a cell phone ringing somewhere upstairs.

His mind latched onto the sound and after a few long moments finally identified the ring-tone and what it meant: work. Or more precisely, Davis.

"Crap," Jack muttered underneath his breath and forced his eyes open. He blinked at the increased sunlight in the room and now certain that quite a bit of time had lapsed since Sam had asserted her mind-blowing claim on him, looked down his chest at the sleeping woman in question sprawled over him.

Grunting, groaning, and muttering beneath his breath at the aches from last night that had reasserted themselves and the stinging pain from his chest and groin that was a result of Sam's nails and teeth, Jack managed to wiggle out from underneath his wife. Staggering slightly after getting to his feet, he rubbed at his lower back in a futile attempt to assuage some of the pain and surveyed the living room.

Photographs were scattered around the front of the couch, Sam's panties, pants, and bra were on top of them but as her blouse wasn't in sight he suspected it had made it over the back of the couch. He frowned at seeing his uniform jacket with Sam's discarded clothing but delayed in picking it up in favour of quirking a sentimental smile at the sight of a sexually dishevelled Sam asleep on their couch, on top of his towel, and still wearing her socks.

Shuffling over to the lazy-boy chair he picked up the afghan and tucked it over Sam so that she wouldn't get cold now that he wasn't serving as her personal heater. Fighting the urge to groan particularly loud as he bent down for the clothing and photographs, he set them onto the coffee table, and claiming his uniform jacket headed for the bedroom.

His mobile phone had stopped ringing some time ago but that didn't mean that Davis hadn't left a text message about his search on Gold or Mackay or faxed or emailed some of the information that he'd demanded.

And he swore because of the pain that they—his belief—had caused Sam that they would pay. Not just because of the pain, but because of the damage to Sam's career that would happen if those photographs were released to the public—the press really. Rumours of an affair with him had haunted her throughout her assignment to SG-1, and now with her marriage to him and the seeming evidence of adultery and fraternization with another superior officer…

They would pay and pay dearly.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

Early Monday morning dressed in her uniform, Sam leaned against the doorway of her husband's home office and sipped at the coffee in the mug she held. They had a good hour before Jack's driver would arrive to chauffeur them to the Pentagon, but Jack had been hard at work since waking up, using every minute of the weekend tying up Gold and Mackay who had been further tied to their four close friends: Wilson, McAllister, Robertson, and Sharpe.

The traces for first Gold and Mackay and then their club friends had quickly established familial relationship with six former members of the Committee organization. Searching into all six had revealed various interesting social and political activities and financial transactions. It appeared those six pampered young men were attempting to follow in their fathers' footsteps by engaging in various shadowy antics.

Most evidence also pointed to the fact that they were only on the fringes of their fathers' former activities—otherwise why would they have engaged in the colossally stupid activity of attempting to blackmail the director of the world's most powerful and secret military department by using his wife?

Well, that was the consensus the analysts had come up with and would stand until evidence supporting or disproving the theory was found. Evidence that would be secured with direct questioning following the six men's arrests and in the searches of their homes, private club, and other owned or frequented locations.

Various other individuals that were either co-conspirators or blackmail victims themselves, like those that had allowed Gold and Mackay to enter the highly restricted area housing Jack's office were suspended from their duties and were under investigation. The links to other, non-Stargate Program military activities, but regular US military activities, also meant this was a very national investigation officially under the auspices of Homeland Security Department—which was really Homeworld Security. And unlike the military officers, the Department had to walk a little more softly with identified civilian victims but Jack hoped that with the threat of their blackmailers removed they would be able to provide more information to him.

The photographic studio responsible for the fabrication of the photographs had also been located—via the financial transactions. While the proprietor initially claimed client confidentiality, he had become very cooperative when the entire Department started breathing down his neck to explain that Wilson had given him the photographs with the man and woman having sex, a remarkable look-alike, for the woman of the photographs that Gold had supplied to him.

Considering the woman's remarkable resemblance to his wife and that it actually was Cameron Mitchell in the photographs had Jack **very** interested in locating the look-alike and learning the results of the Lt. Colonel's questioning; who Landry had informed him a phone call ago, was sweating buckets in one of the SGC's interrogation cells. Jack could well believe it. Even if Mitchell was entirely innocent of the situation, there was still the fact that he had had sex with a woman that looked like Sam and all that could imply.

Ending his latest phone call, Jack hung up the receiver and looked over the six dossiers on his desk that been compiled over the weekend of the young men to his wife. Like her, he was already dressed in most of his uniform and their jackets—his freshly ironed—were waiting in the entrance way for when they departed for the Pentagon.

"I made eggs if you are interested in more breakfast," Sam offered softly, knowing that as Jack had been up hours before she had, he had already served himself a bowl of cereal.

"I would like that," Jack pushed away from his desk and set his briefcase onto the polished surface. He neatly stacked the six dossiers into the case and shut the latches. The five by seven envelope with the manipulated pornographic photographs was already sitting in the bottom of the briefcase.

With briefcase in one hand, Jack picked up his forgotten mug with its cold coffee, and after dropping the case in the entrance way, made his way into the kitchen to find Sam had poured him a fresh cup of coffee. Seating himself at the table he patted the chair beside him and once Sam had taken a seat beside him, twined their fingers together and showed off his dexterity by eating the eggs on the plate before him with his other hand.

Holding hands was just one such demonstration of affection that they had both showed, and needed, this past weekend as they investigated the blackmailing scheme against themselves. Those manipulated photographs had struck a solid blow, but already they were rebuilding the foundations stronger.

. . .

Exchanging smirks of accomplishment Harvey and Donald entered the section in the Pentagon that housed presidential advisor General O'Neill's set of offices again and were pleased when they were shown promptly into the general's office by his aid Davis.

As formally dressed as he was during their previous visit, the grey haired man once again looked up at them over his reading glasses only now he sat slumped in his chair and a defeated aura hung about him.

Hastily, and almost clumsily, O'Neill hurried to his feet at the sight of them being ushered into his office. "Mr Gold, Mr Mackay," he grovelled.

Harvey waved back the general dismissively and he and Donald confidently took seats. "I see that the weekend to think things over has been good for you."

"Yes, it would be most unfortunate if decisions made in haste were to damage the career of yourself, your wife, or the president's term in office," Donald added pointedly.

"Yes, yes," O'Neill agreed with a cringe before asking with timid hopefulness as he picked up and began worrying a pen. "But certainly we can come to some… mutually beneficial agreement?"

"I am sure you can help us," Harvey said superciliously.

O'Neill looked anxiously at them as he worried the pen harder. "Help you? How?"

"Certainly a man who has the president's ear would know how to help us."

"B-but… I… I can't, what I do is highly classified and…"

"Come now O'Neill," Harvey pressed with a glint in his eye, "we wouldn't want any tabloids to get those pictures would we?"

"Surely what you do isn't worth the scandal—in fact it would certainly be impinged by such a scandal wouldn't it?" Donald added. "I think we'll start by reviewing your current projects."

The fingers worrying the pen in his grip stilled and with the defeated air of a man walking to his own execution, O'Neill reached forward to press the talk button of his office telecom. "Bring in this weekend's project files Carter."

Harvey noted that O'Neill had attempted to stall them and made a mental note to exert a suitable punishment for it a little further into their dealings.

The door behind them opened again and the brisk sound of heels against wood echoed loudly in the enclosed space. The initially dismissing glance at the entry of O'Neill's secretary turned to stares as both young men suddenly realized that it was not the man that had shown them into the office, but a blonde woman. A blonde woman who was intimately familiar to them because of the pornographic photographs they'd had made up. Her unexpected presence and current glacial expression sent a trickle of worry down their spines.

Her heels clicking together as she stood at attention beside the general's desk and formally presented the clipboard to O'Neill. "The warrants as requested Sir."

Harvey and Donald exchanged surprised looks—warrants? What was this old man playing at now?

"Thank you Colonel," the general accepted the board and flipped through the handful of pages clipped to its surface. After assuring that the last signatures were all in their proper places the general set the clipboard down. He then methodically took off his reading glasses, and with measured deliberateness folded them, and placed them on top of the search and arrest warrants.

Harvey and Donald stiffened in their seats at the icy shudder that clawed down their spines as General O'Neill suddenly seemed to change. Gone was the defeated oldness, in its place was a lethal readiness as dark brown eyes pinned them with brutal hardness to their seats.

They were unable to look away from his hard gaze as more uniformed bodies began to enter from the open office door. Only they were not the uniforms of officers, but uniforms of the military police.

"You are under arrest for blackmail, attempted blackmail, slander, and treason," Jack enumerated in a glacial voice that had broken the will of alien warriors and had no problem breaking the wills of Harvey and Donald and nearly had them pissing their pants.

"I want—I want my lawyer," Donald managed to whimper as he became aware of the MP hands closing around his arms.

"I don't think Mackay gets it, does he Colonel?" Jack asked rhetorically.

"No Sir," the blonde at his elbow replied crisply.

"Listen up boys. I am only going to say this once. What I do does not officially exist. If you can figure out how to get daddy's lawyers to defend you against something that does not exist, let me know. Until then, enjoy your cells."

As the MPs dragged the now whimpering and blubbering young men from his office, Jack made a sound of disgust in the back of his throat. Disgusted at their antics and the fact that those weak young men had caused him and Sam so much pain.

Harvey Gold, Donald Mackay, Marcus Wilson, James McAllister, Colton Robertson, and Lucas Sharpe—the latter four were also in the process of being arrested once located—were about to discover that they were guppies pretending to be sharks and like any little fish that went swimming with the big boys, they would get eaten.

Sam moved from her position stiffly at attention beside her husband to close the door. Once the wooden panel was shut she made her way back to her husband and took a seat in the chair Gold had just been removed from.

Not liking that she had put his desk between them, Jack got up from his chair and rounded his desk to take a seat in the chair Mackay had been in. When he reached out between the space that separated the two chairs and grasped her hand, he was reassured when she twined their fingers together. Her free hand came up to rub at the wedding ring on his hand that was laced with hers.

"So, that's the beginning of the end of that?" Sam asked softly as she looked at the polished band. She knew that while the investigation would continue and the trials occur months down the line, the outcome considering the secret nature of the program and Jack's international authority would ensure that it was dealt with quickly, quietly, and severely.

"It is," Jack affirmed as he lifted up his other hand to cup her cheek. Sam gave a half-hearted and lopsided smile and leaned her face against his touch.

"Just, no more getting yourself blackmailed okay?" she joked feebly.

"I can't promise you anything beyond the fact that no matter what is shown to me, I will always believe in you."

Seeing the loving reassurance in his dark eyes Sam gave him one of her true, light up the room smiles, and in that moment of suspended time they knew that whatever else was thrown at them they were strong enough to stand against it as long as they had each other, and believed in each other's love.

-FINISHED

* * *

___AN (Which really should have gone in the first chapter): _The purpose of this short story does not really do justice to the Byzantine potential of the plot thread. The purpose was to prove to myself that I was capable of writing to a self-imposed short story limit – five chapters with each chapter not exceeding three typed pages in length. So, if writers reading this feel they can write a far more satisfactory story of the Byzantine plot I barely touched upon, please do so and tell me about the story because I would love to read it! 

_Thanks for reading and to Jack O'Neill – Happy Birthday!_


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